Sign the petition to support Coach Arce’s nomination for the Presidential Medal of Freedom

CLAREMONT, Calif. – Friends, colleagues, Claremont McKenna
College alumni and former student-athletes of Bill Arce, founding
athletic director of the Claremont-Mudd-Scripps athletic department
and head baseball coach, have teamed up to organize a Presidential
Medal of Freedom nominating committee for Coach Arce. Join the
hundreds that have signed a petition to support Bill Arce’s
nomination for the Presidential Medal of Freedom and sign the
petition here.

The Presidential Medal of Freedom, established 50 years ago by
President John F. Kennedy, is the United States’ highest
civilian honor. The medal has been presented to more than 500
individuals who have made especially “meritorious
contributions to the security or national interests of the United
States, to world peace, or to cultural or other significant public
or private endeavors.”

During his 25-year tenure as head baseball coach and as the
founding athletic director of the Claremont-Mudd-Scripps athletic
department, Bill Arce developed the program, facilities and staff
into one of the top NCAA Division III private college programs in
the country and the department remains so today. For his years of
dedication to baseball and the campus community, Arce is an
inductee into the Claremont-Mudd-Scripps, National Association of
Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA) and American Baseball Coaches
Association (ABCA) Halls of Fame.

As athletic director under Arce’s leadership from
1958-1983, the department grew from nine men’s programs in
1958 to 19 by the time he retired in 1983, which included the
addition of several women’s sports in what became
Claremont-Mudd-Scripps athletics as it is today. On the diamond, he
served as head coach from 1959-1979 and totaled 443 career wins and
three Southern California Intercollegiate Athletic Conference
(SCIAC) titles. In 2001, the ABCA honored Arce by selecting him as
the recipient of the Lefty Gomez Award, one of the most prestigious
awards in all of amateur baseball that is presented each year to an
individual who has distinguished himself amongst his peers and has
contributed significantly to the game of baseball locally,
nationally, and internationally. Become a fan of CMS Athletics on Facebook: AthleticsCMS
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